Episode 2: Neurodiversity, Competence, And Care With Maverick Joyce MSW

We challenge neuronormative care by centering acceptance, cultural humility, and body-based practices for autistic and ADHD clients. Maverick shares how somatics, narrative therapy, and neuroqueered CBT restore agency, while we unpack DSM limits, language, and training paths that reduce harm.

• autism-affirming care based on acceptance and agency
• somatic therapy for interoception and proprioception needs
• childhood adaptations becoming adult barriers
• neuroqueering CBT to address bias and context
• narrative therapy for meaning-making and power
• neuroqueer identity beyond binaries and norms
• DSM limits, self-diagnosis, and decolonizing frames
• consent-based language and ongoing check-ins
• training resources and global providers
• six-month coaching group for rejection sensitivity

Follow on Instagram at the.therapist and visit coachingwithmaverick.com to watch the free RSD webinar and learn about the six-month program

Transcript

Setting The Stage: Neurodivergent Care

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Hi, welcome to the Therapist Lounge with Sabrina Dong. I'm here with Maverick Choice Today, MSW. Thank you, Maverick, for joining me today. Hi, thanks for having me. Such an important topic for therapists and clinicians out there around competency involving neurodivergent care, what that looks like, areas of expertise, and actually the harm that we can do as clinicians if we're looking to provide support and not having that knowledge or living and experienced support clients. So, Maverick, if you'd like to share about yourself and um we'll jump into the topic today.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Yeah. So I am trained in social work. My background is in transformative social work. And I'm Aud, that's autistic with ADHD myself. And I work with fellow Auders and any sort of combination with that. And that's also including like self-determined autistic ADHD or like given an so-called, you know, official diagnosis by a professional.

Defining Expertise And Humility

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Great. Yeah. And thank you for um sharing about the two, right? Because today people are determining themselves in terms of you know symptoms of how they experience their world. And then also, you know, the label or diagnosis uh that they may receive. So I was wondering if you'd share about, you know, what it means to have an expertise or knowledge in neurodiversity when you're a clinician and why that's so important.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Yeah. I mean, I would say to to have an expertise in it, there has to be like a very um solid, sort of like critical social theory orientation to the work.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

So like um really um being critical of the status quo, almost like approaching the work first sociologically before you do it um psychologically. So kind of looking at the environment.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

I would say I would say the orientation to how environment shapes people, that kind of sociological orientation first. And then basically being well versed in cultural humility also helps because really when we're talking about neurodiversity, that's a very expansive. It's just about brain bodies. It's saying that there's no right brain body that exists, that's a normal natural thing for brains and bodies to operate differently, and how can we make social spaces and structures that accommodate all the different brain bodies so that no one's being left out? And so, really, in that, like what you want to have is like a lot of humility because there's so much we don't know about the brain body, and there's a lot that even through like interpretation of like science, like those interpretations have been done in biased ways. So it's really having a lot of humility, openness, curiosity, generosity with the way you interpret things, Dr. Stephanie Freiberg calls that interpretive power, which I think we'll get into later. Um and then thinking critically about society, you know, like really challenging the status quo and not just falling back to sort of taken for granted assumptions that we have about things that were actually influenced by uh different biases like patriarchy, racism, sexism, etc.

Somatics For Autism And ADHD

SPEAKER_01 4:53

So really having that in acknowledgement, cognitive and understanding within the sessions on how an individual may be impacted by those biases day to day, not interpreting it for a person in terms of what challenges they a person may experience. Like you said, just acknowledging that it's a brain-body connection. Um, and you know, we've we've had conversations before, and I really appreciate, you know, sharing about the different paradigms and understanding how even somatic therapy can help. Um, you know, that was new for me to hear in terms of somatic therapy involving helping individuals neurodivergent. So I don't know if we could touch on that today and some of the paradigms within your expertise that you're familiar with and that people should should know when offering therapy.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Yeah, I I think somatic therapy is like just one of the best tools for working with, you know, like so neurodivergent is a very large umbrella. And I don't work with all neurodivergent folks because that that's um a very complex and broad range of experiences. So the neurodivergence that I work with specifically is trauma, which is like an acquired neurodivergence, you might hear. Um, autism. Yeah. And so lots of times, so the people that I work with, ADHD and autistic, and that experience almost always intersects with trauma. I haven't known anyone who didn't have traumatic experiences growing up, diagnosed or undiagnosed, ADHD or autistic. And so what happens when you grow up ADHD and autistic is that like the environment doesn't, isn't matched to your the way your brain body wants to operate. And so you kind of get like these subtle cues from your environment. Sometimes they're not subtle, sometimes they're very overt, but you get these cues from the environment that your brain body doesn't belong there, there's something wrong with you, you know, it's dangerous to exist as you are in your brain body. And you know, if we're thinking of this too from the child's perspective, like the world is very confusing to children. You know, children they don't have the language to describe what's going on for them. They might, you know, they're not gonna realize that, like, oh, I'm experiencing overstimulation or overwhelm right now. They're just gonna think like, oh, it's dangerous for me to feel that way. So I'm gonna shut it down. I'm gonna, you know, dissociate or I'm gonna like live in my head, I'm gonna analyze everything. And so you have all of these sort of adaptive mechanisms that are very protective that develop in childhood that continue on into adulthood. And then in adulthood, when now that child has agency and autonomy and their own responsibilities, because they're an adult, they are they discover, you know, that they're um, you know, they start hitting walls basically. Like those adaptive mechanisms that were protective actually start to hurt them and be harmful. So somatic therapy is really great because it helps individuals reconnect with their body. And as they learn how to reconnect with their body, they start to get in tune with who they authentically are as a person, their yes feeling, their no feeling, and they learn how to like honor both of those um, both of so you know, oftentimes you might hear that autistic people and ADHD people struggle with interoception and proprioception. And interoception is like reading your internal body cues, like when you're hungry, when you're tired, when you're thirsty, when you have to go to the bathroom. And proprioception is like knowing where you are in space. So people might call you clumsy by slumping into things. And sometimes that can be really you can be really picked on for that and made fun of that when you're a child. Like for an autistic or ADHD child, it's it's like they can't, they can't help that about themselves because it's a nervous system thing. And so when they get into adulthood, really like just slowly getting back into the body, doing breath work with them, guiding them through connecting with different parts of their bodies, getting a lot of language for what sensations feel like, what's normal, how it might feel. Really that that really that guiding. It's almost like a sort of reparenting that happens. I mean, you're not being their parent, but it's like that step of parenting that they didn't get, which was like being shown how their body works and how their body signals mean and what different body sensations are and what they mean and how they connect to like thoughts and their experiences in real life. So somatic therapies I have found to be so powerful with reconnecting to their power and authentic self.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Right. So this is being able to identify, learn behaviors, biases, messages from society, going within the body, and being able to notice those cues, that's overwhelming, and kind of unpack where it's coming from. And I really liked how you even talked about CBT and how that can be used to not talk about those messages or beliefs coming from the person, right? But again, understanding where it's from the institution, from colonialism or other places. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Like when you are autistic or ADHD, your brain body works in a different way. It's very nonlinear. I mean, autism has so many different ranges of expression, but it's typically not the like neuronormative expectation, which is sit down, like do this task, sit for eight hours, or whatever. Like I'm thinking of school and work, you know, like sit down for this many hours, do this thing, do this thing, do this thing. It's uh like the brain body isn't made to function in that way. Sometimes there can be super hyper focus in one thing, or there can be like multiple interests in doing a series of smaller things that are different tasks that you move back and forth between. Like it's it can express in just so many different ways when that doesn't fit into the like dominant culture. And so what happens is these neurodivergent children absorb those beliefs, like store them in their nervous system, and then create judgments about themselves that become internal negative core self-beliefs. And so that's how I work with CBT, like I neuroqueer it is what I call it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

So maybe if I'm wondering if you could explain more around what that means for you, neuronormativity, neuroqueer, like how you create that space for the client and how it'll helps for you to show up that way as well too with these constructs.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Yeah.

From Childhood Adaptations To Adult Walls

SPEAKER_02 11:50

Well, I think, you know, one of the things is like yeah, seeing me as a therapist just operate differently and not make a big deal out of it, and like not make a big deal out of maybe ways that when clients come to me like they've traditionally been criticized for, all those are definitely healing processes. Neuroqueer is a really great term. Um, I ran first ran into it reading Dr. Nick Walker's work, who she is an autistic scholar who's just written so much about autism and really has played a big part in driving forward and moving forward autistic culture. And she wasn't the only one, like there were two other people, but I just can't rem recall their names right now. That was a really big deal because what Neuroqueer did was it created an identity that is not about these different categories that come from colonialism. Like you're female, you're male, those are colonial identities. Race is a colonial identity. And so what neuroqueer does is it breaks free of binaries and labels that, and what it says is that a neuroqueer identity is when you are critical of the status quo, when it especially pertaining to uh expectations of how brain bodies operate and cis heteronormativity. So that's like gendered expectations and expectations around relationships and what they're quote unquote supposed to be or look like. So neuroqueer is this expansive identity that you can never be too little for or not enough for. Like actually, the best way, the best way to put it is that neuroqueer is um an identity that is a verb.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

It's based on what you do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

So what you do is how you how you align with that identity. So it's really showing up and creating spaces that have room for plurality to exist, that are non-binary. It's about getting away from binaries and being creative and developing spaces and a world where people can be themselves and not be judged for not meeting the expectations of a culture that is all about economic production and hierarchy, basically.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Right. And I think it's so important to have conversations around the modalities of training, what support could look like. Cause, you know, it feels very new or recent. Coming up as a therapist for me, hearing about ABA, IBI, very focused on behavioral attempted reward support. Um, and there wasn't any therapies or guide or support, even certification or training, really, to work with some children other than ABABI. And then you have it's a spectrum.

unknown 15:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

And there wasn't really anyone with expertise or support to offer people, quote unquote, higher functioning. Right. It's so great to understand and you know, experience with you today that there are um ways to train, offer support, skill, somatic types of intervention. Um to not continue to give people the message that there's something wrong. Yeah or you know, they don't fit the box. Or as a therapist, the harm in perhaps continuing to perpetuate that bias or that message, which can be harmful. You know, and wanting to talk about, you know, what is the harm if you're not trained? And I think, you know, there's a difference between maybe being you know, dividend informed and having an understanding about our own biases or or others or what's happening around society, but then also again, with it being more of an expertise or having that lived and experience.

Interoception, Proprioception, And Reparenting

SPEAKER_02 16:04

Yeah, absolutely. And I think the biggest shift that I'm seeing is that like caring, like providing care to someone who is autistic is less about providing treatment, as so many of us have been taught. It's more about acceptance. So not pathologizing that person and being like, oh, here are all your deficits, here are all the ways you're damaged, here's all the things you can't do. It's more about like accepting the person where they are and then also guiding them into self-acceptance. Because when, like, just as humans, when we humans reach a place of self-acceptance, then that is the place where we can step into our power and our agency and our autonomy. And there are so many ways to live this life, and I think this is really where creativity is needed as a therapist because it's finding ways to get people to embrace the creativity and see outside the box, and that comes with self-acceptance, because when you reach that part of self-acceptance, then you have that confidence to even like opportunities.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

One thing that might nicely lead into interpretive power, right? And yeah, helping to interpret the world around us, and like you said, um how we're seeing support, how the individual is internalizing, experiencing it, then versus the external behavioral. Wondering if maybe we could touch a bit on the DSM self-diagnosis when a client sort of approaches therapy seeking support involving self-diagnosis.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Neuroqueering CBT And Norms

SPEAKER_02 18:02

So psychiatry is a system in which mental health needs are based on a clinician's subjective assessment, basically. Um and we have all these human experiences that get pathologized and put into the DSM. Most of those are most of those experiences in the DSM don't actually have pathology in them. And there are so many different cultures that conceptualize mental health in different ways. Indigenous healing philosophies of mental health operate from a place of wellness. And uh, one of my favorite writers and scholars and practitioners in this area is Dr. Renee Linklader. She wrote this book. Well, it's actually was her dissertation that she then published as a book called Decolonizing Trauma Work. And that is definitely a book that has really influenced the way I work and the way I see the world. And so she talks about in that book how indigenous healing philosophies of mental health are about focusing on restoring balance to the self through relationship with others and the environment. And that's how I work too. And I think that's a really powerful way to work with neurodivergent individuals. I mean, I think it's a powerful way to work with anyone, but especially people who have been marginalized and exploited by settler colonial systems. Um, but you can see how psychiatry and the DSM, Western mental health, and then indigenous healing philosophies conceptualize them and the healing process in radically different ways. So psychiatry is centered around the mind and behavior and treats the mind and body as separate entities. In mental health, other explanations of the reality that the individual is having is effectively marginal marginalized and for in favor of like a pathologized, you know, psychiatric diagnosis. So it kind of in that way is not really traumatized. Informed because it robs the person of meaning making. And meaning making, we all know, is like one of the most powerful things in healing and uh moving trauma forward, like uh post-traumatic group.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

So I know there's a lot more I could say on this, but you let me know where you're so with the diagnostic statistic manual that try to fit people cookie chatter, there weren't even questionnaires until recently around battle ADHD.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Yeah, the diagnosis there.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

So I think it's maybe more of a a thing here in the US, right? Absolutely heavily around the DSM. And yeah, having a practice also in in Canada and Ontario where social workers cannot diagnose. So we were do not rely heavily on the DSM diagnosis. We rely on our own tools, own assessments, and and seeing where the client's at. So yes, and seeing how rigid um and but also how it can change. But yeah, so I think it's just going where the client is at, helping them, supporting their primary concerns.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

Narrative approaches, I I have found them to be just so powerful with neurodivergent individuals, especially anyone who's been marginalized or exploited by society. The narrative approaches are just so supportive and healing.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

I was wondering, Maverick, um, if we could share more when we're when we're talking about therapy interventions or care and support, um the importance of the languaging for people. Like yeah, you mean like I think we had talked about um say for children there was a persistent behavioral delinquent sort of diagnosis where children and youth um who are neurodivergent may have difficulty regulating, so it looks like they're constantly just not doing what they're supposed to be doing. And there's a label for that, and we talked about more of a designer-based framework and and changing the languaging. Um so I'm wondering, yeah, if we can maybe touch on the importance of labels, languaging, and making very sure that we're up to date and aware of how it impacts the client. Yeah. I think that's an important part of training and being informed as well, too.

Neuroqueer Identity And Culture

SPEAKER_02 22:26

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, what I always go back to is just like consent, because everyone is going to have different labels that they like for themselves, different ways they want to be addressed and talk to. And some people might not know what that is or that they can even do that. So I mean, I just always go back to like having just an open conversation about it and being like, okay, so like what what terms do you like to use? Like if I call you neurodivergent, do you like that? Does that resonate with you? Do you identify as being autistic? Like the same thing with being part of the LGBTQ community, like there's so many different ways people can identify. So I just think that just being open and honest and those like continual little acts throughout the therapeutic relationship of just checking in. And um, as always, having that like therapeutic discernment, you know, if you notice like a shift in some way, just like checking in about it. Um and then also that like offers a great opportunity for then like somatic exploration. Well, how did that word like land in your body? Um, and then that leads to deeper rapport and connection in the therapeutic relationship. But yeah, I would say the the best way to go about language is use what you're comfortable with and what you know, and use the language that you feel like it's like it's kind of like having a collaborative me making session over what language means to you versus what it means to the client, and just having that open discussion also I think allows for that sort of um allows for the like the seed of like openness and expansivity to grow. Cause you know, when it comes to trauma, like it's always like the it's so easy to have that narrow focus because like that keeps us, that's what we've been taught keeps us safe by you know our nervous system in childhood. I think this kind of goes in any situation, not just language, but just like whatever it is you're doing in the therapeutic space, if you can use it as a way to connect, deepen the relationship, invite conversation, invite difference of meaning or opinion, and then validate what the difference is.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Also, too, it's important as part of maybe the initial assessment and having conversation around. Oh yeah. Yeah. Is culture an important piece for how you're receiving therapy or how a person is identified is that is important. Some clients will say, No, being part of the LGBT community isn't I don't really need to have that incorporated in some way in my session. Some people say yes. Yeah. And so making sure that that's part of the conversation and and from the start.

SPEAKER_02 25:17

Yeah, yeah. Not making assumptions, being curious, all those things.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Yeah, I'm asking. And setting that up to have that the safe space to have those discussions and see that a client has some agency, right? And yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

Yeah, yeah. I'm really centered around agency in my work. So that's always like I'm always bringing that in in some way.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Right. So I'm wondering um if you could share about the types of trainings out there. So if a clinician is is hearing the podcast and wants to know more about what trainings are out there, or maybe perhaps it's a graduate student who wants to learn more um and um be more informed. Any recommendations around where to start or where people can sort of start or go?

SPEAKER_02 26:06

On Instagram, the Lived Experience Educator, gives really solid, fantastic guidance and insight into neurodivergence and what it is and what it is not, uh, because there's a lot of confusion around that. And then when it comes to autism, actually, the US is just like it's so far behind when it comes to mental health and neurodiversity and autism. So a lot of the practitioners that I look towards for information are based out of like Australia and the UK. Yeah, they're definitely farther ahead. And one of them that I really like is called Automy. So it's A U, like autistic, and then academy, so it's like a play on the Academy, but with a U after the A. Um, and I think that's dot co. Yeah, I think it's dot co. And that is it's this amazing, like comprehensive site, like everything autism, everything you could possibly think of. There are videos, there are articles. There's just so much accessibility built into the way they deliver their information. Um, and it's really, really fantastic. If you want to be autism affirming um and you want to provide care to autistic people, I would definitely recommend that website. Um and there's a psychologist who's autistic in psychologist who's autistic in Australia. Her name is Joey. I'm trying to remember her last name. Robin Rossino. I don't know if I'm saying her last name correctly, but you might have heard of her. She does a lot with like about like ABA and autism and children, all from the lens of being like autism affirming.

unknown 27:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

Is it Dr. Joey Lawrence? Okay, I thought it was Lawrence, but then I was like, I don't think the name was like uh actor? Actor? Yeah. Like, I don't know if I'm remembering that right.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

And I pulled it up. I'm like, oh, okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

Yeah. Yeah. She has some really great insights.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

Mm-hmm. So Dr. Joey Lawrence out of Australia um can be really helpful as well to start and explore resources or seeing where to start.

SPEAKER_02 28:15

Yeah, yeah. There, yeah, there really isn't um like a unified framework or anything like that. Yeah, there's not really a gold standard when it comes to like I know people want to look for that thing, like, here's what you do, boom, boom, boom, like that kind of like list. This is how you work with people, or then everything's gonna be great. Um I have my own thoughts on that in general as clinicians working with people who are messy and different. But um right now there's a lot of research being done in the autistic community, a lot of theorizing being done with autistic scholars and and community members who aren't scholars, and a lot of new culture is emerging from those spaces and a lot of new knowledge, and it's really being like suppressed by like the dominant culture right now. So I would say like go straight to the sources. Yeah, I would just say go straight to those sources that I mentioned, and then just synthesize that into your own understanding of how therapy and transformation and human beings work.

Beyond ABA: Harm, Labels, And Fit

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Right. And I think also attending supervision, consultation, yeah, um peer groups for you know, clinicians and therapists who um specialize and offer support and care to clients, you know, same population is always helpful as well, too. Yeah, definitely. Thank you so much, Maverick, for joining me. I just wondered if you could touch on the upcoming group that you're offering. If if any therapists would like to refer or learn about it, if it is open internationally or in US-Canada.

SPEAKER_02 29:52

Yes, yes. So I am offering a group process that's coming up. It's the six-month uh group process. It is coaching, it's not therapy. Um, and it's for rejection sensitivity or rejection sensitive dysphoria or anyone who has rejection wounds, basically, and which does overlap with a lot of autistic and ADHD people, but you don't have to be autistic and ADHD to experience rejection sensitivity. But so it's a six-month program that really focuses on exploring the body and the inner child and ancestral connection, how this might have been passed down through like your ancestry, and it also incorporates spiritual components in there too. And there is a group process that uses critical reflections, which was developed by Dr. Jan Fuch, one of my teachers. And so it combines the group community process with the individual process, because there's one-on-one as well. So it really is focused on like radical self-acceptance through diffusing shame and connecting in community and then integrating that in one-on-one work through the body, and that's six months.

SPEAKER_01 31:04

Wow, that's amazing. And to offer support and guidance um through a group and an individual six months sounds like a really um great support. I'm really excited about it. Yeah. Yeah. Is there going to be research attached? Is it part of a like a thesis or major project?

SPEAKER_02 31:22

No, it's just um, yeah, it's a passion, like love working with rejection sensitive dysphoria, something that I went through on my own healing journey, and it's talked about so often online. Like the rhetoric is like dooming. It's like you're gonna be stuck here forever, it's a lifelong sentence, there's nothing you can do about it. It becomes an excuse for people to stay where they are. And I just want people to know that they can move through it. At least it doesn't have to have a hold on you for the rest of your life. It's a nervous system imprint that you can let go of, like and radical self-acceptance is the way through, developing like that self-love that like carries you forward. Um, and it's also just part of like a very spiritual calling for me, because when you have fear of rejection, what that does is it makes you more likely to people please and conform. We have to work through those things like fear of rejection. Um, because otherwise, what happens is that that that fear that gets in the way of like how you're showing up in the world, it gets passed down to more marginalized people. And that's what our ancestors did. So I'm like, now we have a time, we have a chance to do it differently. All about like I'm all about working with like those ancestral inheritances to like transform and transmute them. That's great.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

So it's great to offer supports and sort of unpack things and again be open to a specific population, right? And rejection sensitivity is such an important topic. Like you said, there's stigma around it.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

And to have such a great support group. So thanks for sharing that. I it was so interesting when when you told me about it. I just think, you know, if there's other therapists that want to know more or can refer to coaching. How can they reach you?

SPEAKER_00 33:15

What would be a good way? Instagram.

DSM, Self-Diagnosis, And Decolonizing

SPEAKER_02 33:19

Yeah, probably my Instagram would be the best place because that's where I um that's where I do like most of my um bite-size, you know, informational pieces about like the program, you know, what rejection sensitivity is, how it shows up. Um, because a lot of people might not even realize that they experience it. Um so I do all that stuff there on Instagram, which is the.therapist. Um, and then I do have a website. It's just coachingwithmaverick.com. And they're like, you'll be you'll come up to a web page that has like a form where you can sign up to watch a free webinar on RSD, what it is, and then the program that I I'm offering and what like the details basically are there, like what it entails, how it supports you to move through rejection sensitivity and like gives you a structure and framework for like continuing the work after the six months.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

Thanks so much for being on today and sharing your journey to support clients um who are self-diagnosed or diagnosed along out to the spectrum or ADHD. And thanks for also sharing your lived in experience and journey as well. Appreciate it. Thank you for having me.